Re: disk naming proposal & devfs

Kevin Lentin (kevinl@cs.monash.edu.au)
Mon, 12 Jan 1998 16:36:12 +1100

On Sun, Jan 11, 1998 at 12:09:19PM +0800, Larry McVoy wrote:
> The short summary is: can we please add a mechanism to the system that
> names the /name/ of the data we want, not the /location/ of the data
> we want? Something like /dev/usr that is a symlink to the real name of
> where ever /usr plugged into the system today? This is most helpful to
> people that move stuff around in their system.

SCO already does something like this. Firstly, SCO doesn't like the DOS
partition thing so they put unix in one big partition and then divide it
into divisions. Each division has a name and that name appears in /dev. I
think there is a /dev/disks as well but I have
/dev/root mounted on /
/dev/swap
/dev/dump (same major/minor as /dev/swap)
/dev/user mounted on /usr
/dev/dsk2 mounted on /dsk2
/dev/oldroot mounted on /oldroot (from an upgrade)
etc.

The problem is that the label is not stored on the disk, it's stored in the
kernel config. As are the disk numbers! ARRGGHH!

So if you pull a disk out of one scsi bay and put it in another, SCO
forgets all the division names and you have to go in and reassign them..
At times I've found this naming concept VERY annoying.
Although having /dev/fujitsu_5gig or /dev/seagate_slow or whatever I cared
for that day that stayed with the parition forever, would be cool.

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